Now that I think of it, I don't think this has been dealt with (for sure not in the web articles, maybe in the AMA) but, has there been any talk about the Experienced mechanic?

For me this was one of the most flavourful mechanics of L5R, seeing a character change and grow over time, and I remember getting one super neat experienced Kakita Toshimoko in the first or second pack I ever opened, so I would be sad to lose it completely.

11 minutes ago, Mon no Oni said:

Now that I think of it, I don't think this has been dealt with (for sure not in the web articles, maybe in the AMA) but, has there been any talk about the Experienced mechanic?

For me this was one of the most flavourful mechanics of L5R, seeing a character change and grow over time, and I remember getting one super neat experienced Kakita Toshimoko in the first or second pack I ever opened, so I would be sad to lose it completely.

Not that I've seen, but didn't they have it in one of the AGoT games? Where you could have multiple copies of the same character if they were a different card?

Might not be analogous. I never played the AGoT card games.

Not quite the same. There are, for instance, several versions of Eddard Stark, each showcasing a different facet of the character, but no "going forward" implication. That's what would be missing, a way to follow your favorite guy (or hated villain), from a bit player to a mover-and-shaker in the story.

It is not something that they would need to have exist in the same set, but one of the mechanics already hints heavily at it being a possibility...

If you have a unique character (basically any named character) in play and you turn up the same unique character in your province-- then you can discard that card and add 1 fate from the bank to the copy that is in play.

This, along with the fact that whomever buys fewer personalities during a turn gets an extra fate, really makes buying fewer, more expensive characters quite a potent playstyle.

But, from this rule... you can see that handling an experienced or inexperienced version of a personality could well work in a similar way. Just over/under lay the card and add 1 fate to it.

More than the mechanical over/under-laying stuff, which I could do without really, for me it's the matter of having characters progress over time, as opposed to being shown differect facets of the same frozen-in-time state.

Given the first story arc hasn't even officially launched, I think you are jumping the gun bemoaning losing the aspect a character progressing over story arcs.

Who's bemoaning? I'm just wondering about it and wishing it continues in some form.

I seriously hope that we will not get it back.

Overlay and Experienced were messy rules which took up so much rule space just for 4 cards during each environment, and it hardly mattered if they were there or not. Especially Overlay was never explained to knew players and seasoned players also didn't use the rule either.

I was seriously surprised, that they kept its as they introduced card subtitles.

Daigotsu, Dark Lord of the Shadowlands

Daigotsu, Champion of the Spider

Daigotsu, Master of Shurido

etc.

Those could have worked just as well as the increasing number of the experienced keyword. Less things to explain to new player and I think subtitles are much more flavorful.

53 minutes ago, Yandia said:

I seriously hope that we will not get it back.

Overlay and Experienced were messy rules which took up so much rule space just for 4 cards during each environment, and it hardly mattered if they were there or not. Especially Overlay was never explained to knew players and seasoned players also didn't use the rule either.

I was seriously surprised, that they kept its as they introduced card subtitles.

Daigotsu, Dark Lord of the Shadowlands

Daigotsu, Champion of the Spider

Daigotsu, Master of Shurido

etc.

Those could have worked just as well as the increasing number of the experienced keyword. Less things to explain to new player and I think subtitles are much more flavorful.

Well, given that it is already going to be a standard mechanic in the game where "If you have a character and you flip over the same character, discard the card and add 1 fate to the character in play" and that is going to be a mechanic that is going to be used quite frequently in all decks....

It seems to me that it doesn't require any more than a couple more sentences more to explain "If the card has a different experience level, place the higher level card on top. Use the stats from the top card, but you can use the ability on any card." or even just "If the experience level is higher, replace the card in play with the higher experience version and transfer all fate counters and any attachments to the new card."

It seems to me that the mechanic works quite smoothly in this respect.

5 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

It seems to me that it doesn't require any more than a couple more sentences more to explain "If the card has a different experience level, place the higher level card on top. Use the stats from the top card, but you can use the ability on any card." or even just "If the experience level is higher, replace the card in play with the higher experience version and transfer all fate counters and any attachments to the new card."

The rules were more complex in the ccg due to the open environment and some characters having several levels of experience. There was (iirc) a rule about paying difference in gold cost if advancing to an experience level that wasn't immediately sequential, honor requirements, and with some of the direct to player sets Inexperienced became a trait.
It's something I loved from a story perspective but mechanically felt like putting training wheels on deck building. Why choose between the two awesome versions when you can get both abilities only paying for one?

I would like Experienced characters. Utaku Idoru, Experienced Border Rider.

It would be nice to avoid Experienced Over9k types of characters though.

1 hour ago, Yandia said:

I seriously hope that we will not get it back.

Overlay and Experienced were messy rules which took up so much rule space just for 4 cards during each environment, and it hardly mattered if they were there or not. Especially Overlay was never explained to knew players and seasoned players also didn't use the rule either.

I was seriously surprised, that they kept its as they introduced card subtitles.

Daigotsu, Dark Lord of the Shadowlands

Daigotsu, Champion of the Spider

Daigotsu, Master of Shurido

etc.

Those could have worked just as well as the increasing number of the experienced keyword. Less things to explain to new player and I think subtitles are much more flavorful.

Yeah overlay and stuff is stupid.

It should just be that they're all unique under one name. A sort of 'soul of ...' thing.

But 100% they must keep the whole idea of different versions and development over time. Without that I don't really think the game is much L5R at all. The idea of characters having different versions which imply a progression of time is kind of important to connecting narrative and gameplay. Otherwise it's just more of the same wishy washy 'time' where everything is jumbled up and the points don't matter. Which basically every other card game does.

Whatever you say, if you just looked at Hida Kuon's Experienced 6 you automatically realized this have to be really badass guy.

Looking at how the new game focus so much on the fugacity of life it seems like the experience mechanic runs contra to that idea and thus is unlikely to return. And I have to say I am fine with that.

At most I could imagine that this could become a new keyword with different purpose, like saying a peep with that costs less fate if you already have a version of it in your discard pile, or something like that.

6 minutes ago, Drudenfusz said:

Looking at how the new game focus so much on the fugacity of life it seems like the experience mechanic runs contra to that idea and thus is unlikely to return. And I have to say I am fine with that.

At most I could imagine that this could become a new keyword with different purpose, like saying a peep with that costs less fate if you already have a version of it in your discard pile, or something like that.

I don't really see how it runs counter to the idea of fate.

Rookie bushi is the last one standing after a pyrrhic victory, search deck, replace/overlay with veteran bushi, add fate +1 equal to rookie bushi's current fate.

Or even just like it has been previously, in your province, pay for it, put it on top, add fate equal to current fate of card being overlaid.

There's actually a lot of potentially awesome and flavorful ways to use it and if anything it reinforces the idea of time passing which is what 'Fate' does.

30 minutes ago, Tebbo said:

But 100% they must keep the whole idea of different versions and development over time. Without that I don't really think the game is much L5R at all. The idea of characters having different versions which imply a progression of time is kind of important to connecting narrative and gameplay. Otherwise it's just more of the same wishy washy 'time' where everything is jumbled up and the points don't matter. Which basically every other card game does.

Absolutely agreed. I definitely want to see character progression in form of different cards. But there are multiple ways of handling this, and the experienced keyword was definitely one of the worst ways to handle this.

22 minutes ago, Drudenfusz said:

Looking at how the new game focus so much on the fugacity of life it seems like the experience mechanic runs contra to that idea and thus is unlikely to return. And I have to say I am fine with that.

At most I could imagine that this could become a new keyword with different purpose, like saying a peep with that costs less fate if you already have a version of it in your discard pile, or something like that.

I also don't think it really fits from a gameplay perspective. From what we've seen so far, it looks like much of the game will be about trade-offs. Being able to straight-up upgrade a character with no downside seems to run counter to that. What I can see them doing is making multiple versions of a character and making you choose which copy you want in play (losing the benefits of the previous version).

I still think this fits thematically, though, it's just that instead of a character's import and influence being shown by a keyword like "Experienced X", it'll be shown by how many different versions a character has and how many roles he can fill.

The only FFG game using experience levels is, as far as I know, Arkham Horror. And that's because you can upgrade your deck between games when playing a campaign (and there's no overlay). In the other games, you might not even get a subtitle (even though it would make writing decklists much easier).

2 hours ago, JJ48 said:

I also don't think it really fits from a gameplay perspective. From what we've seen so far, it looks like much of the game will be about trade-offs. Being able to straight-up upgrade a character with no downside seems to run counter to that. What I can see them doing is making multiple versions of a character and making you choose which copy you want in play (losing the benefits of the previous version).

I still think this fits thematically, though, it's just that instead of a character's import and influence being shown by a keyword like "Experienced X", it'll be shown by how many different versions a character has and how many roles he can fill.

Well, what if you can't play an Experienced card at all unless you already have the less experienced version in play and you can't upgrade during the first turn in play?

That way, if you run experienced cards in your deck, you run the risk of them not being playable at all.

Because otherwise you have the issue where you will be forced to buy in a new copy of a character only to likely lose another copy of that character that might still have fate on it. That doesn't sound like a good deal to me.

Alternatively-- perhaps it overlays but you don't get any more additional fate... so you get to upgrade the character, but only for however many turns remain. Or what if you can upgrade but it COSTS you a fate that you've already placed on the character?

The problem is that the flavor of subtitles and experienced are not the same. Subtitles better represent different aspects of a personality ; Experienced better represent the progression of a character, their ongoing story. Somethign subtitles can't really do well.

A very large part of the flavor problem in L5R basically come down to the attachment to having a new version of the Clan Champion as a fixed personality in every base set, which led to Experienced inflation that rarely actually represented progression by the character, and instead just reflected the fact that AEG needed a new version of that specific character because they were the clan champion and had to be put into the starter for their clan. Which is how we ended up with Kuon Experienced Five Billion despite having no strong story shift between him and the Diamond Edition (or so) version of Kuon.

Overlay rules were messy, but we don't need those anyway.

I think as a keyword in the game it isn't needed. There are other ways to indicate at what stage of their life the character is it. That might be through card art, set they were released in or even flavour text.

I think AGOT2 handles it well, and shows the approach that FFG like. I would guess that is the approach that they will go.

I agree with you it was a neat little key word, and I do actually like it too. But if you were to rebuild the game and look at things objectively like I'm sure FFG have, then you'd say it is unnecessary.

My favorite experienced personalities were the ones that were measurably worse than previous versions.

12 minutes ago, TheHobgoblyn said:

Well, what if you can't play an Experienced card at all unless you already have the less experienced version in play and you can't upgrade during the first turn in play?

What is this, Pokemon?

I think you are over-complicating the whole "experienced" thing. Will we see different versions of the same characters? (probably) Yes. But i don't think we need clunky rules for them to work...

12 minutes ago, Himoto said:

The problem is that the flavor of subtitles and experienced are not the same. Subtitles better represent different aspects of a personality ; Experienced better represent the progression of a character, their ongoing story. Somethign subtitles can't really do well.

A very large part of the flavor problem in L5R basically come down to the attachment to having a new version of the Clan Champion as a fixed personality in every base set, which led to Experienced inflation that rarely actually represented progression by the character, and instead just reflected the fact that AEG needed a new version of that specific character because they were the clan champion and had to be put into the starter for their clan. Which is how we ended up with Kuon Experienced Five Billion despite having no strong story shift between him and the Diamond Edition (or so) version of Kuon.

Overlay rules were messy, but we don't need those anyway.

Or long story short the stuff basically didn't work in the CCG, so why even keep it.

3 minutes ago, Nagori-A-Go-Go said:

My favorite experienced personalities were the ones that were measurably worse than previous versions.

Me as well... but then you had Moto Chagatai who's Experienced 4 dominated the complete Samurai Arc, while is Experienced 5 version was more or less just nice to have.